Yup, there is a lot of prior art on how to get this wrong :(, and I dont know of any good solutions either. Curation and moderation are probably the best case, but arent bulletproof either.
I raised this not to kill OPs project, but to make sure they go into it eyes open. I personally would be very uncomfortable if my website was being abused to distribute malware, so they deserve to at least be aware of the risks.
Very understandable. And from a security standpoint not necessarily indicitive of anything. A good malicious script would just check its environment first.
Have you considered some form of CI? I.e: Spin up a VM, run the script, reboot, report what changed? Might be a little expensive, but could help auditing?
I’m of the opinion that computer textbooks are out of date the second they are published. That one was published in 2017, so 6 years ago, which is an eternity. It might have some generally useful advice, but in terms of resources, google and online wikis are going to be more up to date (still probably outdated, but less so, and free).
Almost every OS nowadays has some form of microphone detection right? So if this was on, you would be aware of it? And to jump ahead, even google is incentivised to prevent this company listening in, as they are direct competitor.
I wonder if this company is just trying to fleece advertisers with a made up tech? The “Claim your exclusive territory before your competitor” feels like the high pressure tactics that other scams use?
I might go disable the microphone in my TV remote anyway :/
They are literally publically claiming that they have a zero day (or at least a zero day level capability). Google/Apple would be all over it trying to fix it. Cyber security researchers would be all over it as well.
NSA can get away with using 0 days for years because they keep quiet about them, and dont use them frivilously.
Yup, for sure, but while a nation state can risk exploitting a zero day to turn on your microphone, an ad tech company certainly can’t. As soon as it get patched they’d be ruined.